Crazy desert weather! After a heavy, all night rain, my family and I decided to plunk ourselves smack dab in the middle of nature and experience the vastness that would swallow our minute cares. Shadowed billows of blue-grey clouds pushed each other out of the way like blow-up bumper boats on gentle sky waters. Spring in the desert is a reminder that the brown, bland, dry, hot desperate seasons are often followed by tiny blooms. We have to lower ourselves to see them, stoop modest and careful. Unassuming, we open ourselves to what we may find. Instead of the bigger picture, looking more closely brings insight and our eyes spot all of the fullness of the beauty around us: specks of yellow, fuchsia, coral buds pop and startle us into a smile.

As we ventured through the Sonoran mountains, thick with orange mud pooling and streaming in downward slopes, my husband, feeling adventurous, got a little mud on the tires. Suddenly, our 4Runner dipped violently into a steeper-than-it-appeared pond of muddy water. I prayed vehemently as he quickly reacted to the lurch of the left side tires and maneuvered us safely to the other side: up and out. 

Sometimes I've viewed the mud of circumstances as just a goopy mess, scary even and capable of sucking me into it's clutches. That's what sensory reactive behavior can be like. A mess that we have to eventually clean up. But do we realize the mud of this day to day struggle is forging us into giant slayers? If we can't see it in the mud (the now), can we look past the mud, or through it? Look out to the other side and imagine what it would be like if that muddy day became less and less. What if there is something amazing on the other side of that mud puddle, waiting for us to see it first, before it appears? Or what if that mud pond that seems like it will pull us under, suddenly turns into a mud pool, and laughter fills our home again. What if...

"Faith is being sure of what you HOPE for and certain of what you do not see." Hebrews 11:1